Once, while I was reading the most boring book ever, I couldn't help but wonder what it was that made this guy think his novel would be of interest to anyone. Every chapter in this book (The Box of Matches by Nicholas Baker) begins with this guy waking up to a cold morning in Maine and lighting a fire. Then he starts talking about the damn wood that he chopped for the fire and the matches he used to light the fire and blah blah blaaaaah. It's actually an interesting concept - having the mundane routines of daily life slowly turn profound and philosophical. But this guy's thoughts were just too boring! And obviously he didn't think so, because to him (and his agent, publishers etc) they were exciting enough to be put into a novel.

Writing a book is such a huge gamble. Especially if you're writing a book that's neither racy nor thrilling, exciting or full of suspense. Sometimes the readers really need to be inside the writer's head to understand what's being talked about. And that rarely ever happens.

So here I am, thinking my thoughts about the incomprehensible layers of life and hoping to be able translate them into something readable. Wondering if I will be able to communicate the essence of my experiences to anyone who is willing to read. Will a 30-something professional in Bombay need to crawl into my mind to understand my desire to wear sunscreen on a rainy day? Or will the 20-year-old college student in Calcutta wish he/she had not wasted their money on my glueing together the splinters of my exploding imagination. I wonder if the retired college professor in Delhi will want to chuck my book into the trash can when she finds out that my writing is not only the crazy outpourings of a mediocre mind, it is also badly punctuated!

Maybe I should give up the idea altogether and go back to a full-time job that pays the bills. Maybe I should stick a fork in my dreams and shout out that they're "done". Or maybe I could go back to slowly crafting the only ambition in my head and ready it for release. Maybe I could go back to putting my thoughts through the rinse cycle, preparing them for the piercing prose they need to dress. I could go back to exploring the revelation of the other realm; the one that woke me out of centuries of slumber. I could just go back to exploring the universe that I just can't wait to introduce the rest of the world to.